Various types of agricultural implements have been developed that can be linked via an implement tongue member to a tractor hitch or other type of prime mover to facilitate different tasks including, for example, seeding, fertilizing and tilling. Hereinafter, unless indicated otherwise, the background of the invention and the present invention will be described in the context of an exemplary planter implement assembly.
While there are many different factors that have to be considered when assessing the value of a planter assembly, one relatively important factor is how quickly the assembly can accomplish the task that the assembly has been designed to facilitate. One way to increase task speed has been to increase planter assembly width thereby reducing the number of passes required to perform the implement's task for an entire field. Thus, for instance, doubling the width of the exemplary planter assembly generally reduces the time required to completely seed a field by half.
With the development of modern high-powered tractors and planter assemblies, many planter assemblies extend to operating field widths of 40 feet or more. Hereinafter when a planter assembly is extended into an operating configuration to accomplish a seeding task, the planter assembly will be said to be in an operating position and have an operating width.
Unfortunately, while expansive planter assembly operating widths are advantageous for quickly accomplishing tasks, such expansive widths cannot be tolerated during planter assembly transport and storage. With respect to transport, egresses to many fields are simply not large enough to accommodate transport of a 40 plus foot planter assembly into and out of the fields. In addition, often buildings and fences obstruct passageways and therefore will not allow transport. Moreover, many farm fields are separated by several miles and farmers have to use commercial roadways to transport their planter assemblies to and from fields. Essentially all commercial roadways are not designed to facilitate wide planter assembly transport.
Recognizing the need for expansive planter assembly operating widths and relatively narrow transport widths, the industry has developed some solutions that facilitate both transport and operating widths. To this end, one solution has been to provide piece-meal planter assemblies that can be disassembled into separate sections and stacked on a wheel supported carrier member or on a separate trailer for transport. Obviously this solution is disadvantageous as it requires excessive labor to assemble and disassemble the planter assemblies between transport and intended use and may also require additional equipment (e.g., an additional trailer).
Another solution has been to provide a folding planter assembly configuration. For instance, in a “scissors type” configuration, where a planter assembly chassis is supported by wheels, right and left implement bars are pivotally mounted to the chassis where each bar is moveable between an operating position extending laterally from the chassis and a transport position where the bar is forwardly swingable over the tongue member and supportable by the tongue member during transport. As another instance, “pivotal-type” configurations provide a single implement bar centrally mounted for pivotal movement on a wheel supported carrier platform where the single bar is pivotable about the mount so that half of the bar extends over the tongue member and is supportable thereby and the other half of the bar extends away from the tractor behind the chassis. In either of these scissors or pivotal configurations, the tongue member has to be long enough to accommodate half the implement bar length plus some clearance required to allow a tractor linked to the tongue member to turn left and right. Thus, for instance, where the planter assembly operating width is 40 feet, the tongue member generally has to be greater than 20 feet long.
While task speed is one important criteria with which to judge planter assembly value, one other important criteria is planter assembly effectiveness and efficiency. In agricultural endeavors, perhaps the most important measure of effectiveness is yield per acre. For this reason, when seeding a field, a farmer wants to seed every possible square foot of the field and thereafter, when maintaining (i.e., tilling, fertilizing, etc.) and harvesting a field, the farmer wants to avoid destroying the plants in the field. To maximize field seeding, farmers typically travel along optimal field paths. For instance, to ensure that seed is planted along the entire edge of a field, a farmer typically starts seeding the field by first traveling around the edge of the field with a seeding implement at least once and often two or more times along adjacent consecutively smaller paths prior to traveling in parallel rows through the field. These field edge paths are generally referred to in the industry as headland passes. By performing one or more headland passes about a field edge prior to performing parallel passes, the farmer provides a space for turning the tractor and implement around between parallel passes while still covering the entire space along the field edge.
While headland passes increase overall field coverage, whenever a tractor is driven over field sections that have already been seeded, the tractor and planter assembly wheels crush the seeds or growing plants that they pass over and therefore reduce overall field production (i.e., yield per acre). For this reason, as known in the industry, where possible, farmers routinely attempt to reduce the number of headland passes required in a field.
Unfortunately, the number of headland passes required to facilitate complete field coverage is related to the turning radius of a tractor and planter assembly combination and the combination turning radius is directly related to the length of the tongue member between the planter assembly and the tractor. Thus, for instance, where the tongue is six feet long the turning radius may require only one headland pass while a twenty foot long tongue may require two or more headland passes to facilitate complete coverage.
Recognizing that a short tongue during planter assembly operation reduces the number of required headland passes and therefore increases efficiency and that a long tongue is desirable to accommodate pivotal and scissors type implement configurations, some industry members have developed staged tongue members that expand to accommodate implement transport and retract to provide a minimal turning radius during implement operation. One of these solutions provides a single stage telescoping tongue member including a first tongue member mounted to a planter assembly chassis and a second tongue member that is telescopically received in the first tongue member. To facilitate expansion and retraction, a hydraulic cylinder is positioned within one of the first and second tongue members with a base member mounted to one of the tongue members and a rod secured to the other of the tongue members. With relatively large implements and tractors, the force required by the cylinder is relatively large. By placing the cylinder inside the tongue members, cylinder force is evenly distributed thereby reducing cylinder wear, reducing cylinder requirements and increasing the useful cylinder life cycle.
While better than non-telescoping tongue members, unfortunately, single stage members cannot telescope between optimal maximum and minimum lengths. For this reason, where single stage tongue members have been employed, either extended implement operating width has been minimized or extra headland passes have been used to accommodate a larger than optimum turning radius.
One other solution has been to provide a multi-stage tongue member that is able to telescope between optimal maximum and minimum lengths. Designing workable multi-stage tongue assemblies, however, has proven to be a difficult task. To this end, a separate cylinder is required for each stage in a multi-stage assembly. For instance, in a two stage assembly at least two cylinders are required. Unfortunately, in the case of a retracted multi-stage tongue assembly, the retracted assembly can only accommodate a single internally mounted cylinder (i.e., a cylinder mounted within the internal tongue assembly member). As indicated above, to balance cylinder load during operation and thereby minimize cylinder wear and increase useful cylinder lifecycle, the industry has opted to place tongue dedicated cylinders inside tongue member passageways and external tongue dedicated cylinders have not been considered a viable option.
One exemplary and seemingly workable multi-stage tongue assembly is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,956 which is entitled “Forwardly Folding Tool Bar” and which issued on May 19, 1992 (hereinafter “the '956 patent”). The implement configuration in the '956 patent teaches a scissors-type implement having left and right bar members mounted to a wheel supported chassis for pivotal rotation between an extended operating position and a transport position over the tongue assembly. The tongue assembly is mounted to the chassis and extends toward a tractor including several (e.g., 5) telescoped tongue members including a distal tongue member 14 that actually links to a tractor hitch. To move the bar members between the operating and transport positions the '956 patent teaches that first and second hydraulic cylinders are mounted between the chassis and a point spaced from the chassis on each of the right and left bar members, respectively. By extending cylinder rods, the bar members are driven into extended operating positions and when the rods are retracted the bar members are driven into transport positions.
The '956 patent teaches that the tongue assembly can be extended and retracted while the bar members are driven between their operating and transport positions and by the first and second hydraulic cylinders by attaching braces between the bar members and the distal tongue member. More specifically, a first rigid brace is pivotally secured at one end about midway along the right bar member and so as to form an acute angle therewith and at an opposite end to the distal tongue member and a second rigid brace is pivotally secured at one end about midway along the left bar member so as to form an acute angle therewith and at an opposite end to the distal tongue member.
The '956 patent teaches that when the cylinder rods are retracted so that the bar members are in the transport position, the tongue assembly is extended so that the distal end of the assembly clears the ends of the bar members. When the cylinder rods are extended, the bar members are driven toward their extended operating positions and the braces simultaneously pull the distal tongue member toward the chassis thereby causing the tongue assembly to retract. By reversing the rods so that the rods extend, the braces force the distal tongue member away from the chassis thereby causing the tongue assembly to extend. Thus, the '956 patent configuration replaces the tongue dedicated rods with the first and second braces on opposite sides of the tongue assembly, the braces in effect operating as rods to extend and retract the tongue assembly and providing a balanced load to the distal tongue member during extension or retraction.
The '956 solution, like other solutions, has several shortcomings. First, because the '956 patent configuration cylinders are linked between the chassis and the bar members, in the case of some planting assemblies, the cylinders will get in the way of planting assembly components (e.g., seed metering devices, ground engaging coulters, etc.). Similarly, because of the locations of the braces (i.e., secured between central points of the braces and the distal tongue member), the braces also will obstruct use of certain planting assembly components.
Second, in order to simultaneously drive the bar members between the operating and transport positions and drive the distal tongue member between the retracted and extended positions, the cylinders have to be relatively large and therefore expensive. One way to reduce cylinder size is to modify the planter assembly configuration to increase the acute angles that the braces form with each of the bar members when the bar members are in the extended operating positions. This solution, however, leads to a third problem with the '956 patent configuration. Specifically, to simultaneously provide a workable design including braces and accommodate larger acute angles that enable the use of smaller cylinders, the overall retracted tongue assembly length must be increased which is contrary to the primary purpose for which the assembly has been designed (i.e., to reduce tongue length during planter assembly operation and increase tongue length during planter assembly transportation).
One solution to the problems above is described in the related U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/062,612 (hereinafter “the related reference”) which is entitled “Planter Hitch Apparatus”, which is commonly owned with the present invention and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The related reference recognizes that where separate hydraulic cylinders have been provided for each stage in a multi-stage tongue assembly, the cylinder loads are shared between the separate cylinders and therefore the overall load requirements on each stage cylinder are reduced appreciably. Where cylinder load is reduced the cylinder can be placed “off-load” center without appreciably affecting load balance on the cylinder and therefore without appreciably reducing cylinder lifecycle.
Thus, it has been recognized that, in the case of a multi-stage tongue assembly that can accommodate only a single internally mounted cylinder, additional externally mounted cylinders can be provided for each of the additional stages. For instance, in the case of a two stage assembly, a first stage may be motivated via an internally mounted cylinder and a second stage may be motivated via an externally mounted cylinder. In this case, the external cylinder will only assume a fraction (e.g., 50%) of the overall load and therefore can be placed off-load center without appreciable effects and without a balancing cylinder on the other side of the tongue assembly.
According to one embodiment described in the related reference, a multi-stage tongue assembly includes a separate hydraulic cylinder for each stage where at least one of the cylinders is mounted externally of the tongue members (see FIGS. 1 and 7 generally). For instance, in the case of a two stage assembly including a first tongue member mounted to the underside of a carrier platform, a second tongue member telescopically received within the first member and a third tongue member telescopically received within the second member, one cylinder is mounted externally and the other cylinder may be mounted either internally or externally.
The related reference also teaches a hydraulic automated locking mechanism for locking the tongue members in extended and retracted positions. To this end, in the case of the two-stage tongue assembly described above, the locking mechanism includes two separate locking assemblies, a first assembly mounted to the distal end of a first tongue member and a second assembly mounted to the distal end of the second tongue member. Thus, in this case, hydraulic fluid has to be provided to each of the first and second locking assemblies.
In most cases planter assemblies (and agricultural implements generally) that are pulled by tractors or other types of prime movers do not come equipped with their own power plants. This is because most farmers employ many different implements and to provide a separate power plant for each implement would render the combined suite of implements far to costly for most farmers. Instead, tractors, the farmer's primary mechanical tools, are typically constructed such that they have power capacities sufficient to both transport an attached implement as well as provide power to run the implement. For instance, in the case of the planter assembly described above and in greater detail below, a tractor linked to a planter hitch assembly would provide hydraulic fluid to any planter assembly cylinders required to rotate the implement between transport and functional positions, to raise and lower support wheels, to raise and lower an implement bar, to extend and retract the telescopic tongue assembly and to control the locking assemblies. In addition, the tractor would also provide electrical power to the hydraulic valves (e.g., solenoid valves), any blower mechanisms for seed delivery, to the row unit metering devices and to any other devices requiring electrical power (e.g., tail lights, sensors, etc.).
To provide power to a planter assembly, a tractor typically comes equipped with one or, in most cases, a plurality of power or power source ports that are positioned proximate a hitch receiving member and the planter assembly is equipped with one or more power receiving ports. Power cables are then provided to link associated ports (i.e., hydraulic to hydraulic, electrical to electrical, etc.) together. Generally the planter assembly pivots about the hitch receiving assembly with respect to the tractor and therefore the power cables are constructed to flex and accommodate a degree of pivoting consistent with a minimum tractor turning radius.
As in most assemblies including power cables, in the case of a planter assembly, the power cables have to be protected from damage. For instance, if the hydraulic hose providing fluid to the internal tongue member of a multi-stage tongue assembly is severed with the tongue in the retracted and functional position (see FIG. 1), the planter assembly cannot be rotated into the transport position (see FIG. 9) and hence the assembly cannot assume a suitable configuration for transport along most roadways.
Generally, one solution for protecting a power cable has been to mount the cable such that the cable's relative juxtaposition with respect to the components that the cable is mounted to remains unchanged and such that the cable resides in a space devoid of other moving components. For instance, in the case of a hydraulic hose and a non-staged tongue assembly (i.e., a non-telescoping tongue member), the hose can be mounted directly to the external surface of the non-staged tongue member.
Unfortunately, in the case of a multi-staged tongue assembly power cable protection is a more difficult task because the tongue assembly length is variable. One solution for accommodating a variable length tongue assembly is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/101,881 which is entitled “Hose Control For Planter Apparatus” which was filed on Mar. 21, 2002, which is commonly owned with the present invention and which is incorporated herein for its teachings regarding cable routing and protection. While the protective sheath member described in the aforementioned reference protects and routes cables sufficiently adjacent a multi-staged tongue assembly, the sheath does little to restrain cables proximate other portions of the planter assembly. For instance, cables have to generally be routed from the sheath to other planter components such as hydraulically controlled markers and other components at the ends of the implement bar(s).
Fortunately, planters can generally be configured such that many of the planter cables follow a similar path for most of their length and only diverge at distal ends thereof. Thus, mounting assemblies have been configured that, in effect, bundle all of the cables together at certain points and mount the cables to adjacent planter members to restrict or minimize cable movement at those points. For instance, one mounting assembly includes a clamp member and associated relatively long bolt/nut combinations. An exemplary clamp member includes a concave member that, as its label implies, is concave to one side and forms apertures on either end of the concave member for receiving bolts. The bolts are received through the apertures and through similarly arranged apertures on a support structure (e.g., the carrier frame or some other rigid planter member) and can be secured thereto via the associated nuts with the concave side of the member facing the support structure.
This clamp-bolt/nut assembly is advantageous as the clamp assembly can be adjusted so that the size of the space between the concave member and the support structure is adjustable to accommodate variable cable configurations. For instance, two cables may be positioned within the clamp assembly and the bolts can be tightened down to secure and restrict the two cables or, in the alternative, ten cables may be fed through the clamp assembly and secured thereby to the support member.
While the clamp assembly described above has some advantages, the assembly also has several shortcomings. First, in the case of any assembly including bolt/nut combinations for securing purposes, it is desirable to completely tighten the bolt/nut combinations to ensure that the nuts do not loosen during use. This is particularly true in environments where extreme vibrations are anticipated such as in a typical agricultural environment. Thus, with a clamp type assembly like the assembly described above, to ensure that the assembly performs its function properly, the assembly must be completely tightened. Also, in this regard, it should be noted that a completely tightened clamp reduces noise caused by vibrating components that are not clamped.
Unfortunately, while necessary to ensure that the assembly remains functional, the tight assembly requirement renders the clamp type assemblies rather cumbersome to use. To this end, during configuration several components have to be manipulated at one time including the nuts and bolts, the concave member and each of several different cables. In some cases as many as ten or more cables have to be manipulated and therefore configuration is difficult. In addition, where a cable has to be added to an already configured clamp type assembly, machinations required to unclamp the assembly, insert the additional cable and re-clamp the assembly are cumbersome.
Second, most clamps have a relatively short length along an axis parallel to the concave surface of the concave member and therefore, in many cases, to ensure that the cables are aligned along a desired or optimal trajectory, two or more clamp assemblies may be required.
Third, as in the case of any mechanical assembly, in the present case, the relatively large number of components required to configure the clamp assembly increases assembly costs. This problem is particularly acute where, as indicated above, two or more clamp assemblies have to be mounted adjacent each other to ensure that cables are aligned along a desired trajectory.
Fourth, in some cases where the cables are mounted adjacent moveable planter assembly components, protective cases that form the external surfaces of the cables rub against the clamp assembly components during planter assembly movements. For instance, in the case of a pivotable implement bar where a clamp assembly is mounted to the implement bar but one end of cables passing therethrough is securely mounted to a bulkhead, when the bar is rotated, the cables may rub against the bolt shafts adjacent thereto tending to wear the external surfaces of the cables and reduce the length of the cables useful life. Where the bolt shafts are threaded, the rough threaded shaft surfaces tend to exacerbate this wearing problem.
Therefore a need exists for an apparatus that can be used to provide a cable restraining member that is versatile, inexpensive and easy to configure and employ.